


Oceanside

by soupypictures



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depression, Developing Relationship, M/M, Oceanside - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22840045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soupypictures/pseuds/soupypictures
Summary: Paul goes away for awhile, and Daryl brings him back.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Jesus
Comments: 4
Kudos: 58





	Oceanside

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Howdyep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howdyep/gifts).



> Post-Whisperers, Jesus Lives.

The moon was huge and bright over the ocean when Paul finally stopped to rest. He gnawed on the fish jerky and hardtack the cooks packed as a lunch for the day workers. Paul had labored in the sand from sunup to sundown in Oceanside. 

That was his job now. 

Not interim leader of Hilltop. 

Not long-distance scout.

Not martial arts instructor or recruiter or trade negotiator.

After this latest war Paul had needed a change of scenery. He’d needed a change of responsibility. A way to … step back. He’d left Hilltop with Maggie to be a cog in the machine they’d built out of the splinters of their nascent civilization. 

But he still didn’t sleep. He hardly ate, just enough to keep going. He knew what this was, though it hadn’t lived within him in a decade. He thought that making it through the first _years_ of the apocalypse without a whiff of the sinking morass that had swallowed him up for whole years of his adolescence and early adulthood meant that he was over _it_. 

There were a lot of emotions he should have been feeling instead of the deep _nothing_ that had settled into his bones once the Whisperers were defeated and Maggie had taken back her role at Hilltop. He should have felt relief that the Whisperers were no longer a threat and he no longer had to lead. He should have felt hope for their collective future, these four communities he’d had a hand in bringing together. He should have felt _pride_ to have survived this long and helped build these lives.

He heard Daryl’s shuffle, a purposeful broadcast, before he sat next to him on the large piece of driftwood he’d been using as a bench. They sat wordlessly, eyes trained on the rising moon, the small waves making soft sounds against the shore. The hunter had arrived that afternoon with a trade delegation and Paul had done his best to stay out of his way.

“I’m not here ‘cause anyone asked me to come get you and bring you home.”

Paul sucked in a breath. _Home_.

“Far as I’m concerned, you’ve earned a break for as long as you want it.”

“Then why are you here?” Paul knew how he sounded. Dismissive, uncaring, bored. Maybe Daryl would mistake his tone for just plain exhausted and not take offense. A flicker of care licked at his chest.

“Things ain’t been the same since you left.” Daryl paused, and Paul finally looked over at him. He had his thumb at his mouth, the easy tell that he was nervous. Paul felt a flash of sympathy. “I realized somethin’, after a couple weeks.”

Paul kept silent. It wasn’t easy for Daryl to talk about anything personal; he wouldn’t throw him off with his flat affect.

“Fuck, Paul, I don’t know how to say this.”

Paul reached for Daryl’s hand and pulled it from his mouth, clasping it between both of his. “Just spit it out.” He hadn’t touched anyone in awhile, and he was sure Daryl hadn’t either. It was nice to feel his warmth.

“It’s good to have Maggie back, and bein’ able to watch Hershel grow up is a blessing. Should’a been enough, that’s what I kept tellin’ myself. But that ain’t … it ain’t doin’ it for me. Kept feelin’ like I was missin’ somethin’. Felt off-balance, unsettled. Took me two weeks but I finally figured out it was you I’s missin’.” Daryl squeezed his hand and finally took his eyes off the ocean to look Paul full in the face. “I know, you ain’t in a place to accept that kinda thing. I get it, I been there. But we don’t got tomorrow promised to us and maybe it ain’t fair to you but every day it was getting harder for me to stay put, pretend I didn’t have this rattlin’ around in my chest.” He shook his head then looked down at their hands. “ _That’s_ the selfish thing, comin’ out here and puttin’ this on you right now.”

“It’s not selfish,” Paul replied quietly.

“You’re goin’ through a lot, shouldn’t be addin’ more to what you’re dealin’ with.”

Paul looked up and blinked rapidly, trying to keep the tears from falling. He clung to Daryl’s hand like a lifeline. “Your affection is not a _burden_ , Daryl.”

“I don’t wanna make you cry.”

Paul huffed out a mirthless laugh. “Shit, this is the only thing I’ve felt in weeks.”

“C’mere.”

He let himself be pulled into Daryl’s broad chest, let the tears leak out of his eyes and onto Daryl’s shirt, let himself be held. _Before_ all this Paul had been weighing out the possibilities between him and the loner, the man who’d spent years in the woods with a dog searching in vain for the body of his brother before coming back to civilization just in the knick of time to help manage their newest threat. War, war, war. Taking all his time, energy, creativity, emotion. Everything of him sucked right out to survive, to help his friends survive. Help his _family_. And then, it was all over and he was empty.

A slow drip of _feeling_ seeped through as Daryl held him close. “How long are you staying?” he asked into the collar of Daryl’s shirt.

“Long as you need me.”

“What if that’s a while?”

Daryl leaned back and bit his lip, reaching up to wipe the tears from Paul’s cheeks. “Think that’ll be okay.”

He turned his head to kiss Daryl’s palm, a soft press of lips to rough skin. “Yeah?”

Daryl’s mouth quirked up in a shadow of a smile. “Never had a beach vacation.”

He leaned back in, the chill of the evening sending a shiver up his spine. Even though Daryl was only in shirtsleeves, he radiated heat like a furnace. Paul let himself rest in those arms, against that solid body, and imagined what came next—living a real life, and sharing it with this man right here.

That was something worth working for.

**Author's Note:**

> howdyep -- was scrolling through tom's tag on tumblr and saw your birthday's coming up, and i just happened to be working on this little ditty and that piece of information gave me the motivation to finish it! i hope your birthday is lovely.


End file.
